


The Dark Hour

by BlueLightningAndNexus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Anarchy, Dark Fantasy, F/F, Found Family, Gen, Superpowers, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:14:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueLightningAndNexus/pseuds/BlueLightningAndNexus
Summary: Ashlyn Orchid--a lone traveler, wandering from town to town--is attacked outside the city of Dria. She is found by single mother Maria, who treats her wounds and takes her downtown. But, unfortunately, something goes wrong. A drug is released into the street, the townsfolk begin tearing each other apart, and the city falls into chaos.Ashlyn takes it upon herself to protect Maria and her three children (Jaime, Alda and Maya), and maybe, just maybe, they'll survive the night.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Kudos: 4





	1. Awakening

Ashlyn woke up in the basement, cold and weak. Gazing out the window, she saw the setting sun, lighting the sky with orange fire. It’d been high noon when those bandits jumped her; she’d spent most of the day unconscious. 

Ashlyn adjusted her position, but immediately felt a sharp pain in her side. Tears pricked at her eyes. _That’s right_ , she recalled, _I was stabbed._

The memories were a bit hazy. She’d been on the road for the last few days, trying to get to Dria. Maybe she could get a hot meal, or a warm bed for the night. That didn’t end up happening; some assholes jumped her just outside of town. They got a few good hits on her, but she was handling herself...until she felt a sharpness in her side, and blood dripping down her leg, and suddenly everything was dark. 

Ashlyn looked over, her clothes--now stained with blood in addition to dirt and sweat--had been removed, put in a heap in the corner of the room. A wool blanket covered her legs and chest. She removed the blanket, and found bandages wrapping her waist, but no clothes except for underwear. 

“Shit, where am I?” she whispered. Her voice was hoarse from lack of use, from the days of walking by herself for hours on end across the region. The room was all ugly concrete and a couple of wooden support beams that looked ready to collapse at the drop of a hat. A cot separated her from the floor, and a single filthy, tiny window in the corner of the room was her only source of sunlight. 

A million possibilities ran through her mind at light speed. Though she had seen the bandits walk away and leave her behind, maybe they came back for revenge. Maybe she’d been kidnapped by some horrid serial killer, or she got picked up by traffickers, or slavers, or--

“Mama, the girl’s awake.”

Ashlyn didn’t even hear the door open. Hell, she didn’t even **see** a door, it had blended in so perfectly with the walls. She turned, and saw a young girl, no older than 9, standing there, looking at her with watchful eyes. 

“Where am I?” Ashlyn growled, struggling to get every word out. The girl hesitated, took a half-step back. 

“O-our house,” she stammered. 

Ashlyn tried to rise to her feet, but the pain exploded again, more intense than before. Someone rushed to her side. It wasn’t that same girl; it was an older woman, in her 30s or 40s. 

“Maya, run and get her some water.” The woman was talking to the young girl, who hesitated for a moment. “Now!” she commanded. 

The woman pressed a hand to Ashlyn’s forehead. “My child, you’re burning up.”

Ashlyn didn’t even realize how cold she’d been until the shivering started, and then she couldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried to clamp her jaw shut. 

The woman--with her deep, stony eyes and her long ebony hair--pulled out a needle. Tapped it twice. Squeezed the bottom, and liquid dripped out. 

Ashlyn wanted to ask who they were, what their names were, what they wanted with her. But as the pain in her side came and went in waves, she felt her eyes getting heavy. The last thing she felt before she passed out again was the needle going into her side. 

_________________________________________________________-

“Mama, is she going to die?” It was a high-pitched voice, feminine. Probably belonging to that child from earlier. Maya. 

“No, mi amor, but I’m worried. We need to take her to a hospital.” The mother’s voice was rushed, anxious. 

“We can’t afford an ambulance ride.” A different voice. Older, but still female. A teenager. Maybe an adult. 

“We’ll drive her downtown. The car just got out of the shop, it’ll be fine.”

“Ma, this doesn’t feel like a good idea.” Another voice. Four voices total. 

“Didn’t you give her the medicine? Isn’t she all better?” Maya asked. 

“Jaime, Maya, I gave her medicine for that big gash, but ’m worried she was hit on the head. If so, she’ll need an MRI.” A pause, which Ashlyn presumed was the two small children looking at her dumbfounded. “It’s a big machine that sees if your head is ok.”

“You gave her penicillin, right?” The teenager asked. 

“And stitched her up,” the woman replied. 

Light footsteps, shuffling. “Ma, if she was gonna die, you’d tell us, right?” The other kid--Jaime, apparently--asked. 

A beat. Hesitation. “I-I would, yes.”

Ashlyn started opening her eyes once more. Pain surged in waves like the tide. A hiss escaped her lips. The figures came into focus. 

The woman was packing up some stuff into a bag. To her left, a teenage girl with short black hair was leaning against the door. To her right, two small children--one about 6 or 7, another about 8 or 9--were eagerly waiting on every word. 

The voices faded into nothingness, as Ashlyn slipped into unconsciousness once more. 


	2. Foreboding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A disturbing news report sets things in motion.

When Ashlyn awoke again, she felt fucking awful. 

Her entire body was covered in sweat, her hair was clinging to her face. The pain in her side had subsided a bit, but only a bit. Her head was throbbing, but it was nothing compared to the stab wound; nothing some painkillers and a couple pints couldn’t help her deal with. 

Speaking of which, Ashlyn was absolutely **parched**. She tried to speak, tried to ask where that woman or her kids were, but her mouth wouldn’t make any noise. A desert was forming in her mouth. She was still in the same place--their garage, apparently--but no one seemed to be around. The door was slightly ajar, and she could make out some noise on the other end, but it was faint. Based on the yellow sunlight spilling in through cracks and gaps in the walls, she could guess it was daytime. 

_Great, I just slept through an entire day. It’ll be late as hell by the time I get to Dria_. 

Ashlyn pulled herself onto her feet, a Herculean task if ever there was one. _Well, if I even_ **_get_ ** _to Dria. Shit, this hurts_. 

Ashlyn threw on a bathrobe that one of the kids had left next to her cot. It was a gray robe with black stripes on the sleeves; pretty tiny, stopping a little down her thighs, but comfy all the same. 

She stumbled over to the garage door, gently nudging it open. The sound of the TV caught her attention, but she could only make out bits and pieces. 

“...authorities aren’t sure...in the water...riots...Calmund…”

When Ashlyn walked through the door, she found herself in the family’s living room. The house wasn’t terribly spacious, but it was cozy, comfortable like the robe around her. A thin layer of beige carpeting covered the floor. Paintings of nature and photographs of relatives decorated the walls. 

She silently walked over, grabbing herself a glass of water from the sink. Then another. Then a third. As she downed glass #4, she took note of the fridge, covered in so many crayon drawings from the kids that the silver chrome underneath was barely visible. 

Speaking of which, those kids--Maya and Jaime--were playing around, trying to do a puzzle on the living room floor. The teenager (Ashlyn didn’t catch her name) was seated on the couch, eyes fixated on the news. Maria was standing behind them; she didn’t hear Ashlyn come in. With quiet footsteps, she approached, trying to hear what was on the TV. 

The broadcast showed a young reporter with tan skin and frizzy black hair, standing in front of the capitol building. She didn’t look too much older than Ashlyn herself. 

“We have official reports. The assailants have released a drug in several of Dria’s boroughs, including West Acre, Derres Road and the Column. These boroughs and more have also seen huge public protests and riots, costing tens of thousands of dollars in private and public property damage.”

“Alda, the little ones shouldn’t be watching this,” Maria mentioned, as if as an afterthought. 

As the older girl--Alda--reached for the remote, Ashlyn held out a hand. “Wait,” she piped up, making her presence known to the family. 

Maria turned around, a hand on her chest. “Oh, goodness, you’re awake. I didn’t even hear you come in.”

“What’s happening?” Ashlyn asked. 

On the screen, the reporter suddenly stopped talking, a hand going up to her ear. “I’m receiving reports: this drug, which the assailants referred to as “Bronze,” has even been released in our sister city-state Garden. The assailants left a cryptic message behind, calling themselves the Eidolons. We are going into the capitol building now, where the Commissioner and Mayor Calmund are--”

The audio briefly cut off. In the background of the broadcast, the building burst into flames, littering the air with smoke and ash. 

“Holy hell,” the reporter cried. “Calmund was still in there!” She turned to the cameraman. “Cut the footage! Cut--”

The screen suddenly went black. All five of them were left wondering what the hell just happened. 

“Mom, is that lady gonna die?” Jaime asked. 

A look of dread crossed Maria’s face, which she tried to replace with a wobbly smile. “No, she’s not.”

Turning to Ashlyn, Maria spoke. “Well, we were gonna take you to the hospital. Now, that doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

“I’m not your concern, lady. I appreciate the hospitality, I really do. But you don’t need to do any more for me. I need to get going.”

Alda crossed her arms, a grimace plastered on her face. “You would’ve died out there if I didn’t find you.”

Ashlyn hummed. She didn’t realize this girl was the one who found her. “I appreciate it, kid, but I should get out of your hair.” To Maria, she asked, “Where’d you put my stuff?”

“You’re not going out there, not in your current condition,” Maria instructed. “We’ll bring your supplies with you, but right now, we need to get out of town.”

“Where are we going mum?” Maya asked. 

Ashlyn watched the gears turn in Maria’s head. “Kids, how would you like to see my brother?”

Jaime and Maya cheered. “Uncle Rick!”

Maria put a hand on Ashlyn’s soldier. “Come with us. My brother, he’s a surgeon. He could bandage you up better than I could, give you some painkillers, medicine.” 

Ashlyn wrinkled her nose. “Lady, please, you don’t--”

“We’re not discussing this. You’re not going back out there on your own. Just come long enough for him to stitch you up.”

Alda was mimicking her mother’s stern guise. Ashlyn would’ve laughed at how similar the mother and daughter looked, if laughing didn’t hurt, that is. It’d been a long, long time since someone bossed her around. 

Ashlyn stared past the two, out the window of their small house. Dria was off in the distance. One of the biggest city-states on this side of the nation. 

That news footage...it disturbed Ashlyn in a way she didn’t want to admit. It’d been a rough couple days for her, and she did miss having a warm bed and clean clothes. She’d been in her fair amount of cities when it went to shit, and Dria was looking like the worst of them. It definitely wouldn’t hurt her to stick with this family, even if it slowed her down. 

“Fine.”

“Kids, pack some clothes,” Maria commanded. “We’re gonna head out in ten. And you,” she said to Ashlyn, “come with me, help me load up the car.”

_____________________________________________________________

After getting dressed in a wrinkled black t-shirt, a pair of loose gray pants, and her dusty black coat, the hem of which came down to her ankles; Ashlyn started helping Maria bring suitcases, food, and clothes into their gray minivan. 

Once the two were alone outside, Maria held out Ashlyn’s bag, a dirty old sack that had once been a pale blue. “I saw what was in your bag, you know.”

Ashlyn raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Ashlyn reached in. Her revolver, spare ammunition and hunting knives were still in there, along with some flint and steel, a compass, and an extra pair of shoes. 

“Look, I’m not here to judge. I don’t even know you. But please keep the weapons away from my kids.”

“That’s no problem. I never intended for anyone to see it. I never intend to use it.” 

Maria had a contemplative expression, as if she had something to say but was biting her tongue. “Most people would’ve just kicked me out, you know,” Ashlyn said. “Actually, scratch that, most people would’ve just left me on the side of the road.”

“I don’t believe that. I think people are better than you give them credit for.”

Now that she was finally out of that stuffy garage, Ashlyn got a better look at the neighborhood they were in. 

Dria was a massive city, though that didn’t feel like quite the right word for it. It was a massive metropolis, practically a small nation in it’s own right. It used to be considered part of the city-state of Garden, but it was legally declared an independent territory a few decades ago. 

Even though it was officially divided into several districts, it bled out into the surrounding regions and areas, like a spreading virus. The neighborhood they were in right now had more trees and dirt roads than Ashlyn would’ve expected; they probably bordered on a forest of some kind, a few miles outside the official city limits. It was quiet. Nice. 

“Maybe,” Ashlyn admitted. “But I’ve learned not to trust people.”

“Why were you heading into Dria?” 

“Trying to find an old friend of mine. He said he’d be here.”

Maria hummed. “I noticed you didn’t have any sort of ID on you. Not even a passport, or driver’s license. You...aren’t from around here, are you?”

“Why were you going through my stuff?” Ashlyn growled. 

Maria rolled her eyes. “We were trying to get you to a hospital, remember? They would’ve asked for info: name, date of birth, blood type. Info I couldn’t provide.”

Ashlyn’s anger dissipated at the explanation. 

“I take it you’re a nomad, yeah?”

“Something like that. But I’m not with any group. I’ve just been on my own. Have been for the past couple years.”

“You have a name?” 

“Orchid. Ashlyn.” 

“It’s good to meet you," Maria replied, and she meant it. "I’m Maria. Those were my kids. Maya is the youngest, then Jaime, then Alda.”

Ashlyn nodded. “I figured” A beat. “This brother of yours, where is he?”

Ashlyn couldn’t believe herself. If some random family had come along a few days ago and invited her on a drive, she would’ve flipped them off and ran in the opposite direction. But now...well, she wasn’t exactly in the best condition. 

And this woman, she just radiates warmth. It scared Ashlyn how much she trusted Maria. How much she wanted to trust her. 

“Ammont Hill,” Maria said mildly. Ashlyn raised an eyebrow. “You sure that’s the best idea? We’ll be driving awfully close to the city limits on that road.”

Maria gave nothing in response but a small smile. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. It’s just, you seem oddly knowledgeable for someone that just got in town.” Maria closed the trunk door. “A lot of city folk come down this neighborhood. It’s like the main road in and out of Dria. If things start going south...well, that’s why I wanted to take the kids out. But I don’t think the north roads’ll be too bad.”

Maria's words did little to settle Ashlyn's fears. The nomad couldn't shake the feeling that something far, far worse was brewing in that city. “If you say so.”


	3. First Kill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashlyn, Maria and the family are attacked.

The car ride was full of noise. Jaime and Maya were playing games in the backseat of the car. Maria was driving, with Ashlyn in the passenger’s seat, and the two stayed deathly quiet for most of the trip. Alda sat in the seat directly behind Ashlyn; the nomad pretended not to feel the teenager’s gaze burning holes in the back of her head. 

Along the way, Maria passed neighbors and friends of hers, all with the same idea: Get out of town, Wait this out. Get somewhere safe. 

A few of them were hitchhikers, waving their hands and screaming for help on the side of the road. Some of them with cars broken down, or no vehicles at all. 

“Keep driving,” Ashlyn grunted. 

Without looking her way, Maria nodded and hit the gas, much to the dismay of her children. 

They were on one of the main roads now, the North Bells district of Dria just a few miles westward. That seemed to be where a lot of the commotion was. In the distance, Alda saw people frantically driving away, running after one-another. She pretended to ignore the screams, the faint sound of gunshots. 

Dria was no stranger to these sorts of scuffles. The Mason Hill riots a few years back proved that, as did the increase in police brutality over the last decade. Hell, last winter alone there was a new drug spreading fast and hitting hard. But this...this was different. All of it. Maria didn’t even live in town, and she’d be blind not to have noticed it. That explosion on the news wasn’t the sort of thing that just happened. It’d been an attack, a coordinated one, maybe even by the people that released that drug into the air. 

She looked in the rearview mirror, catching sight of her children. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if even one of them breathed in those fumes. If they got sick, she’d be all alone. 

She pushed that thought aside, trying to ignore the What-Ifs, the lingering, gnawing feeling that things were about to get worse before they got better. Much, much worse. 

Everyone in the car turned their heads when they heard the Boom. It went off to the left, making Maya call out. 

“Mama,” Maya said, pointing back towards the city, “look!”

Maria was still driving, but she gave a quick glance at the city. One of the taller skyscrapers in the distance was suddenly ablaze; pillars of smoke rose from it, forming canyons of ash and darkness. She distantly recognized the logo on the side of the building. 

“Oh, Christ,” Maria whispered. When Ashlyn looked to her for explanation, Maria offered, “My old job. I hope everyone got out alright.”  Ashlyn kept her doubts to herself. 

Soon, another explosion happened, and then another. As they approached the end of the road, Ashlyn was captivated by the sight before her: Dria was in flames. 

In the span of only a few hours, it seems the city had fallen apart. In a bizarre way, she was almost thankful she’d been attacked the day before; had she made it to Dria in time, she would’ve been knee-deep in that mess. 

“Mom, look out!” Alda shouted. 

Maria was so distracted by the sight of the city, she didn’t even notice the man run into the middle of the road, arms waving around. He was tall, with a rugged, outdoorsy look. A thick, red beard circled his face, and he had a lion’s mane of dark brown hair on top. His light green flannel had long since faded over time, and it was currently covered in grease stains, holes and blood drops. 

Ashlyn reached over and slammed the palm of her hand in the horn. “Move,  **asshole** !” she shouted. 

The man continued to wave his arms. “Please, help me! My brother’s car broke down, we’re stuck!”

There was a firmness to Ashlyn’s eyes, a fiery caution, as she looked to the side of the road. An old, beat-down maroon minivan was dead in its tracks, another man with the hood popped open and seemingly working on the engine. 

But Ashlyn couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. “Maria, keep going!” she commanded. 

“But--” Alda began. 

“Hit him if you have to,” Ashlyn interrupted. She had a bad feeling about this. Every instinct and every cell in the nomad’s body screamed to get out of there. 

Alda swung her arm around, punching Ashlyn in the shoulder. “Listen, lady, we found you on the side of the road, too! Are you saying we shouldn’t have taken you in?” she demanded. 

“Maybe not!” Ashlyn answered. 

The two were so busy arguing they almost didn’t notice Maria putting the car in “Park” and stepping out. 

“Maria, NO!” Ashlyn shouted. Had she been a split-second sooner, it would’ve been too late. The man in the middle of the road reached behind him, pulling out a revolver, aimed directly at Maria. Ashlyn reached over, grabbing Maria by the arm and pulling her back inside. Maria felt the hot lead graze her ear. 

“Dammit, step on it!” Ashlyn ordered. 

Maria had to adjust her footing to reach for the gas pedal, and by then it was too late. Men came at them from all sides, wielding crowbars, knives, baseball bats with nails driven into the wood. One of them broke the window closest to Alda and grabbed at her neck, a malicious, hungry look in his eye. 

Ashlyn didn’t waste any time. She pulled the revolver from her bag and shot through the window. It hit the man between the eyes, and blood poured out from the wound onto Alda’s face, her hair, her clothes. He was dead before he hit the ground. 

As the children and Maria screamed, more men came at them, pulling them out of the car one by one. A tall man with a toothy grin and a scar over his eye threw Ashlyn’s door open and grabbed her gun, throwing it to the ground and dragging her away. “Let me fucking go!” the nomad shouted. Sinking her teeth into his mouth, Ashlyn bit down as hard as she could, stamping the heel of her boot onto the man’s shoe as she did so. He grunted in pain and socked her in the chest; Ashlyn would’ve crumpled if she didn’t lean on the van for support. 

The scarred man withdrew a silver switchblade from his mouth, a thin little weapon with a brown handle. He slashed at her, but Ashlyn ducked out of harm’s way, before grabbing him by the arm and turning the knife back on its owner. The assailant lost his balance, and he fell over, giving Ashlyn an opening to sink the blade into his thick neck. 

Coming at her from behind was a fourth figure, the man who was pretending to look at the engine on the side of the road. This attacker was a leaner man than the rest, a scrawny guy in his late 20s with a long face and orange-brown locks of hair. He was wildly swinging a machete at Ashlyn; despite her injuries, she had enough energy and perception to side-step out of the way. She reached over, grabbed him by the wrist, and flipped him over and onto his back. He hit the ground with a dull Thud, and the air was knocked out of his lungs quickly as a balloon deflating. She stomped on his face, blood catching on her pants, and wrestled the machete away, before stabbing it into his heart. Before anyone else had the chance to catch up to her, Ashlyn ran over and took her revolver back. 

Now armed, Ashlyn went on the offensive. She rushed over to the attackers on the other side of the van; a large, balding man built like a truck was holding onto Maya with his left arm and had Jaime in a headlock with his right, stupidly leaving him with no spare hands to defend himself. Ashlyn didn’t hesitate to swing the machete into his skull.  The lumberjack-looking figure in the middle of the road had his sights aimed at Ashlyn, but he was a second too late to the draw. Even with a recovering stab wound, Ashlyn was fast enough to anticipate and avoid his first gunshot, weaving out of the way before firing one of her own. The bullet sailed through the air gracefully and struck him in the center of his chest. 

Two men were initially trying to pin Alda down, but now they were completely focused on removing Ashlyn. “Let. Her. Go!” Ashlyn shouted as she rushed them (well, as fast as she could, given her current state).  One man pulled out a sawed-off shotgun, but with a wide swing of the bloody machete, Ashlyn sliced his hand off, the weapon sailing into the air. The other tried reaching for his knife, but he was a second too late; once his guard was down, Alda punched him in the chin, and Ashlyn used the opening to shoot him. 

Finally, Maria was the last to be saved. The only remaining man had tattoos covering his muscled forearms and a thick handlebar mustache, a cap covering what remained of his once-dark hair. With one arm, he had Maria in a headlock, and with the other, he had a gun pointed at her head. 

Time seemed to slow. Ashlyn suddenly became aware of each little detail in the world: how Dria continued to burn behind them; how Alda and Jaime wouldn’t stop crying, how Maya just seemed frozen in fear. But above all, she realized, even with the weapons in hand, she couldn’t be quick enough to kill the final attacker. Not without Maria dying, too. 

“Fuck this, fuck this,” he muttered to himself. “And go to hell, you fucking bitch! The city’s gone to shit! This was supposed to be my time!” he shouted, pointing the gun at Ashlyn. 

Once the gun was off her temple, Maria bit down on the man's arms. He screamed in agony, blood pouring out of the wound, and Ashlyn took advantage of his confusion to deliver one final, killing blow to the head. 

Maria fell to her knees, her frail body shaking with each sob. Ashlyn walked past her to the car. 

Turning the keys in the ignition, Ashlyn felt the familiar hum of the car start up, but it was gone as soon as it started. “No,” she whispered. She turned the keys again, and again, and again. Each time, it would only start for a moment, before the engine would sputter and die. 

Looking out past the windshield, Ashlyn saw the source of the problem. One of the people who pinned Alda down, the one with the shotgun, blasted at the front of the car; fluid was leaking out of the holes. The engine was busted. 

“Fuck!” Ashlyn shouted. 

She looked over at the family, still on the side of the road, faces covered in blood and tears. Then, Ashlyn’s gaze shifted to the revolver in one hand, the machete in the other. The switchblade and sawed-off shotgun she pocketed.

She lucked out. These were just a bunch of would-be rapists and robbers, but nothing organized or trained. Easy to kill, easy to scavenge from. 

She could probably make it out of here on her own, but with four more people? Including little kids? It’d be much, much tougher.  _ If this was just waiting for us on the roads, I wonder if even the forests are safe _ . 

Ashlyn put the weapons away, looking over at Alda. The teenager seemed especially traumatized, and she turned her whole body at Ashlyn. “You...you killed them,” she weakly whispered. “All of them.”

“I had to,” Ashlyn offered. “They would’ve done worse to you.”

Ashlyn held out a bloodied hand to Maya, and was mildly surprised when the little girl accepted it. Ashlyn’s gaze panned across the family. This small, helpless family who would’ve been dead weight in any other situation, but who took her in, treated her wounds, cared for her. To everyone, she said, “Everyone, come with me. We need to get out of here. More people are gonna come. More people with the right idea.”

“Where the hell do we go?” Maria asked. “The car’s busted.”

“We need to get to high ground.” Ashlyn looked behind her, at the rapidly-decaying remnants of Dria, a once great metropolis of the west coast. “We need to go back into town.” 


	4. Entry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashlyn and Maria make it into Dria.

However bad Dria looked from a distance, it was much, much worse up close. 

Windows were shattered, decorating the asphalt roads with shards of glass. Houses, offices and businesses alike were busted open. Gunshots perpetually echoed throughout dark alleys and down blood-stained sidewalks. Cars crashed into lamp posts and buildings, leaving behind trails of gasoline and debris. It was as if the entire town had gone mad.  _ What the fuck happened here?  _ Ashlyn thought. 

Ashlyn was leading the charge. The machete she swiped off that robber was doing her well. Her revolver was holstered, swapped out for the sawed-off shotgun. It was a much less elegant weapon, but in dense crowds and close quarters, it’d be far more devastating. 

Maria was behind her, holding Jaime close to her chest. The tears were long since gone, but the reality of this situation hadn’t quite sunk in. Every now and again, as they turned a corner or went down an abandoned street, Ashlyn could hear the mother muttering something about how This was all just a nightmare, Soon I’ll wake up again, It’s just a nightmare. 

Alda was between Maria and Ashlyn, holding Maya close. The two sisters each bore the same frightened expression, the same primal fear. Both of Ashlyn, and the people she protected them from. 

“This is a terrible idea,” Alda surmised, voice shaking. 

“We would’ve been sitting ducks on that road back there,” Ashlyn replied. The car was busted, and they were stranded too far away to walk back home or to Richard’s cabin outside city limits. Other bandits and robbers would’ve gotten to them first; stolen their supplies, killed them, or worse. 

“This isn’t gonna last long. We just need some shelter to wait out the night.”

Ashlyn looked around. This was still on the edge of town, where the few buildings that could’ve provided some semblance of shelter had already been blown down and torn apart. No one was around. The crashed cars, chunks of metal, bullet shells and occasional trails of blood seemed to form a path, telling them which way to go. Or which way to avoid. One of the two.  _ How does an entire neighborhood become a ghost town in a matter of hours _ ? 

As Ashlyn poked her head into the occasional house and saw torn bodies, bloody weapons and carpets stained with red, she decided she was better off not knowing. 

She approached every corner cautiously, checking every nook and cranny and alleyway before the others caught up to her. There was no way that  **everyone** disappeared; some were probably lurking in the shadows, waiting to get the jump on them, just like those robbers. 

She barely heard the words that escaped Maria’s mouth. “Where did you learn to do that?” 

“Do what?” 

“Those people back there--”

“Were going to kill you, and worse.” Ashlyn spared a glance back at the mother and her children. “I’ve picked up a thing or two over the years, nothing special.”

Maria said nothing. By this point, Ashlyn was about ten feet in front of them. They made their way to the edge of the neighborhood in silence. 

Once they got into the city plaza, Ashlyn nearly threw up. 

The plaza had once been a beautiful place, probably. It was a large square, the intersection of four massive neighborhoods in the center of their borough. In the center were sidewalks and bike paths all circling around a marble fountain, the water of which had recently turned red. A billboard that looked straight out of Times Square watched over them, as if it were the eye of God. 

Bodies were torn to shreds like ground beef, littering the streets with blood, gore and bone. The few bodies that were relatively intact told a multitude of stories: bullet holes and stab wounds and bruises and caved-in skulls. This carnage wasn’t hiding in dimly lit alleys or abandoned houses; it was visible, for the world to see. An omen. 

Chunks of earth poked out of the ground at odd angles, forming neck-high spikes. Ashlyn’s gaze panned across the massive street, and she noticed the corpse of a young female, her body impaled on one of the spikes. Behind those spikes, craters appeared of varying size and depth. It looked like a bomb detonated, but the smell of gunpowder was absent. Furthermore, there were no blast marks, no patches of scorched earth.  _ What the hell happened here? _

Alda turned around, hot tears brimming at her eyes. Maria held Jaime closer, covering his eyes with an extended palm of hers. 

_ This place is a warzone _ , Ashlyn thought. She shook her head, trying to push the blood and guts out of her head. She closed her eyes, gripping her shotgun with shaky, bloody fingers.  _ Just one night. Just one night. Just one night _ . 

Just ahead was a building, easily forty or fifty stories tall. It was a butter gold, or at least, it looked like it under the setting sun. With vertical lettering, the blinking sign read “Sapphire Regent Hotel.” At the top, rooms were still occupied, if the lights were anything to go by. 

“Everyone, let’s get there,” Ashlyn said. She turned around, just in time to see the woman attacking Maria. 

Their assailant was a shorter woman, a little under five feet, with a plump figure. Her hair, once a gorgeous gold, had turned almost as sickly as her skin. With blunt pudgy fingers, she loosely gripped a dull dagger, the blade of which had been drowned in red. 

Holding the screaming Jaime with her left arm, Maria caught the woman’s wrist. The knife’s momentum stopped, but the tip of the blade just barely pierced the flesh of her shoulder. Mustering her strength, Maria kicked the attacker in the chest, and the women stumbled apart. The assailant prepared to charge and close the distance once more, but Ashlyn was already between them. She ended the skirmish, and a life, with a calculated swing of her machete at the woman’s thick neck. 

Ashlyn looked down at the corpse she created. The trembling in her hand was gone, replaced with a calm that washed over her entire body. 

The woman was a Frankensteinian creation. Her skin was a motley gray-green, the flesh bubbling beneath the surface. Thick, purple veins were visible on her neck and face, converging on her nose and mouth. It distracted from her colorless eyes. Ashlyn stared at her for one second, two, before turning around to face the family. 

“Is everyone alright?” she asked, as if indifferent to the life she took. She interpreted their stunned, horrified silence as a yes. She gave one final look at the torn roads and earthy spikes, before setting off, leaving them to follow her. 

_____________________________________________________________

The Sapphire Regent Hotel, one can assume, had also been beautiful before the city went to hell. 

On the inside, it’s walls were a gorgeous cream color. The ground beneath Ashlyn’s feet consisted of hundreds of pieces of maple plank flooring, varying in size and color, arranged to create mesmerizing patterns. Weight bearing cylinders of sandstone, smoothed to perfection, sprouted out of the ground, drawing her eye to a ceiling that was nearly fifty feet above them. Massive windows extended from the floor to the ceiling, revealing the bloody town square and what lurked beyond. 

The reception desk was abandoned, as was the entire lobby area. Things seemed to be in relatively good shape, all things considered. Chairs were knocked over and lights were broken, and Ashlyn thought she saw one or two bullet shells, but there was no blood, no gore. 

Ashlyn waited for a few moments. When she heard nothing, she put the shotgun away and strapped the machete to her leather belt. “I think it’s safe here,” she said, turning around to the others. “Let’s try to find a room to rest in.”

If there was anyone else in the building, they either didn’t care or were too high up to notice. The building was massive, and while Ashlyn only saw lights on the top floors, the bottom floors seemed safe. The air-conditioned rooms were cool, and while they were clearly signs of chaos--beds turned over, clothes scattered about, shelves thrown to the floor--there was nothing to indicate the Sapphire Regent Hotel had seen even half the carnage that the rest of the town had. 

The sun had completely set by this point, bathing their world in darkness. Everyone was too jittery, too terrified to sleep, so Ashlyn elected to go back down to the ground floor’s lobby and look for supplies. She found nothing useful--staplers, papers, folders, nothing of importance--but as she rummaged around the reception desk, she noticed something. 

Ashlyn had been in fight-or-flight mode for hours, but inexplicably, in this moment, she started to let her guard down. She almost didn’t notice them. 

Just outside the hotel lobby, beyond the massive glass windows, were travelers. They were led by a man in his 30s or 40s with a hunting rifle in his arms, the barrel of which was the same brown-gray as his beard. His eyes darted across the street, cautious and observant, but not crazed.  _ Another outsider?  _

His gaze lacked the bloodlust Ashlyn had seen in Maria’s would-be-assassin this evening, nor did it have the depraved hunger of the robbers from earlier. It was just fear. Life. 

Behind him were a few others, fluctuating in ages. A little boy, no older than Jaime, with shaggy blonde hair, accompanied two teenage girls with fair skin and chestnut hair in messy ponytails. Behind them, a stout man with a thick white beard and no hair atop his head; and a short, middle-aged woman with a pistol clutched in her hands.  _ His family, maybe?  _

They looked through the window, and made eye contact with Ashlyn. The man briefly pointed his gun, but immediately lowered it when he saw no bloodlust in Ashlyn’s own gaze. They were the same. They weren’t taking advantage of the chaos or adding to the bloodbath, they were just passing through. They were just survivors. 

On a hunch, Ashlyn held up her hands in an “I surrender” gesture, and the middle-aged woman--his wife, maybe--lowered her own pistol, nodding her head. They were the same. No harm done. 

This solidarity did not last. The little boy grabbed at his mother’s coat, pointing behind them. 

A storm of emotions invaded Ashlyn as she watched. From the sewer grates behind them, a strange gas leaked out, a rusty orange color. 

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes, the sight calling her back to the news report from earlier that day.  _ What did that woman say? The drug was in West Acre, what was it called again? Bronze? _

The family saw the gas and tried to sprint eastward. They were too late. A second, larger column of gas tall as a truck emerged from the nearby alleyway, like a monster hunting its prey. Ashlyn slammed her hand against the window, pointing and trying to get their attention. “Get out of there!” she shouted hopelessly. 

The fog consumed the helpless travelers in an instant. Ashlyn watched as they were coughing, gasping for air, throats filled with an endless mist. The stout man’s eyes filled with red; the children were coughing blood. 

“No,” Ashlyn said, backing away. Her feet were moving on their own. “God...”

Strangely, the bearded man with the rifle didn’t have the same reaction as the others. Rather than turning red with blood, his eyes carried an electrical glow. Lightning crackled at his fingertips, energy gathered in his hands. Veins glowed blue. 

“He’s...changing?”

He seemed to evolve right before her very eyes, into something more than a man. Something beyond normal humanity. 

The others had fallen by this point. Their bodies didn’t have the same reaction. With crimson eyes, bloody mouths and polluted lungs, they collapsed to the ground. The leader of the group, the father, broke into sobs, crying out in despair. 

Ashlyn turned around and went back to the staircase, the faces of those children seared into her brain. They looked almost like Maya, Alda, Jaime, even Maria. 

_ I won’t let that happen,  _ she thought, as she instinctively reached for her weapons.  _ I’ll never let that weapon. We’re going to survive this. All of us _ . 

She afforded one final glance back out the windows, and a new figure emerged from the Bronze mist. 

This one was nearly seven feet tall, a behemoth that more resembled a living suit of armor than a man. His entire body was covered in black armor--or at least, it looked like it. Upon closer examination, the armor wasn’t even made of metal pieces, and there were no gaps between steel and flesh. The shoulderpads, breastplate, gauntlets, rerebrace and plankart were all fused together into the skin, forming a massive, metallic heap. The helmet was a strange contraption, looking almost pyramid-shaped; no normal human could have been wearing that armor. 

Slung on his shoulder was a black rifle, and strapped to his side was a thin but long sword. He made eye contact with the electrical man, then turned his gaze to Ashlyn. Behind the slits where his eyes should have been visible, she saw nothing.  Amidst the fog, the armored man aimed his rifle at the sobbing traveler. 

Ashlyn ran as fast as she could back up the stairs. 


	5. Night Terrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashlyn talks with the girls and sees a new group

When Ashlyn returned to the room, her mind was racing a mile a minute.  _ What the hell does that Bronze stuff do?  _

The images replayed in her mind, again and again and again, as a broken record. The wall of rusty vapor, consuming the travelers like a predator engulfing an ant. Coughing, blood, death. And in the midst of it all...that man. He had some sort of energy pulsating around each muscle of his body, like he was a living lightning rod. Yet there was no lightning. 

But that wasn’t even the strangest part. The most peculiar sight was the armored swordsman, with metal fused into his skin, aiming and ready to fire. Ashlyn couldn’t explain how--instincts, or a hunch, perhaps--but she got the distinct impression that the swordsman and the electrical man were one and the same. That somehow, the armored swordsman had been exposed to Bronze, too. 

Alda was getting tired now, the traumas of the day having worn her out. Yet, even in her exhausted state, she found the energy to ask Ashlyn more questions. “Where did you learn how to use a gun?” and “Is your name really Ashlyn?” or, in a hushed tone so the little ones wouldn’t hear, “Was there anyone else down there?”

Eventually, Maria told her daughter to stop pestering Ashlyn. The nomad asked a question of her own. “What do you two know about Bronze?”

Alda shrugged, and upon realizing that her own questions weren’t going to be answered, she crawled into bed with Maya. At the same time, a flash of suspicion crossed Maria’s gaze. “Not much,” she said. “Just what they said on the news.”

Ashlyn narrowed her gaze, as if waiting for Maria to elaborate, but the mother never did. Ashlyn sighed. After loading and cleaning her weapons, her gaze fell to the window. 

“Everyone, try to get some sleep,” she said. “I’ll be on the lookout tonight.”

“Aren’t you gonna sleep?” Maria asked, concerned. “You’re still injured, you need rest more than us.”

“I’m used to not getting much sleep.” Ashlyn’s face was unreadable, still as stone and cool as ice. Her mind was amiss with thoughts of swordsmen, blood, guts and bullets, though she kept her mouth shut. It would do no good to reveal that information. 

“We can sleep in shifts,” she offered. “I can wake you up in a bit, then I can grab a couple hours. It’ll be better that way.”

Maria looked unconvinced, but she said nothing. She dozed off within the minute. Jaime was next. He leaned against his mother, burrowing his way in-between her chest and the crook of her folded arm. He gave one final look at Ashlyn--confusion mixed with trust and gratitude--and fell asleep. 

Looking at the tired woman and her peaceful son, the remnant of a scowl crossed Ashlyn’s face. Her thoughts turned disappointed, angry. 

_ You really got yourself into a mess here, Ash,  _ she told herself.  _ You should’ve left them behind, back in that car. Back at that house.  _

The thought came to her as easy as breathing, as blinking, but a tiny part of her brain felt repulsed by the idea. The repulsion only grew as she watched Maria, strands of black hair covering her closed eyes.

Ashlyn went back and forth on the issue.  _ Leaving them would be nothing. I’ve done worse _ . She thought of her days on the road, her old mercenary band in Kenta, their falling-out. Her run-ins with the agents of law and order, seemingly no matter where she went.  _ Much, much worse _ . 

But at the same time, there was something about this family that appealed to Ashlyn.  _ Maybe I’m just growing soft, or maybe it’s cause they stitched me up, but leaving them now feels...wrong _ . 

She looked out the window. No other travelers had crossed the roads or emerged since that armored swordsman. Speaking of which, as Ashlyn tried to peer out the window, she couldn’t find him at all. The feeling deep in her gut, the foreboding, was still there.  _ A storm is coming _ , she mulled.  _ If I leave now, after everyone falls asleep, I can get out of here. Sneak out before sundown.  _

Ashlyn rotated her head and found Alda, glaring daggers at her. Considering the intensity of the glare, Ashlyn was beginning to wonder if she was a telepath.  _ Please don’t be reading my mind _ , Ashlyn thought as she met the teen’s gaze. 

“What was it like, the first time you killed someone?” Alda said. Her eyes were still bloodshot, her cheeks moist with tears, and she was curled into a fetal position. Next to her, Maya slept peacefully. “And don’t tell me that your first kill was tonight, because I won’t believe you.”

The distrust was still in Alda’s eyes, but it was layered below a wisdom beyond her years, and pure childlike curiosity. The desire to learn more about this bizarre woman who saved her life. However, anxiety colored Alda’s body language--the way she buried her head in her legs, the way she tightly folded her arms, the way she rocked back and forth.

Ashlyn was perched on the windowsill, eyes calm and dark. She studied the young girl, trying to decide how much to reveal. 

“Hard,” Ashlyn settled on. “I was twelve.” Images crossed her mind, memories from that night. 

She was with her troupe, a band of traveling circus performers. Acrobats, trapeze artists, strongmen and strongwomen, masters of the wire, jesters with elongated limbs and bizarre faces, they all gathered together. Saorisa Orchid, her mother, had been among their ranks, a former ringleader for the troupe. She died long ago. 

The ringleader at the time was Tomm Aska. He was an older man, who frequently spoke of grandkids twice Ashlyn’s age. He had a chubby build and a thick white beard that made him look like Santa Claus, but with only about half of the jolliness. On the rare occasions he did laugh, it was a joyous, hearty sound. His wife, Belliora, was one of the strongwomen in the troupe. Sometimes, Ashlyn swore that they shared half a brain, but they were good to her. Decent. 

The soldiers came the night after Ashlyn’s twelfth birthday. The crescent moon was a sickly pale yellow, the color of curdled milk. She didn’t recognize their uniform at the time, but she would later learn they had been from the Second Division of the Litho Army, a tiny nation a few hundred miles north of Dria. 

They shouted falsehoods and lies of the troupe harboring a criminal, insisted on searching them and bringing them in for questioning. One of them punched Tomm when he refused. They grabbed one of the acrobats--a stick-thin woman with dark skin and hair the color of embers named Jackie--and tried to take her outside. One of the lieutenants pulled a sword on Belliora when she tried to resist. Ashlyn could still remember how that blade looked, gleaming in the night sky, the same yellow as the moon. 

Before she even registered it, the knife was in her hands and she was charging. The first soldier fell in an instant, the knife plunged deep in his gut. The second grabbed Ashlyn by the neck, screaming curses, but Belliora charged into him at full speed, knocking him clear out of the tent before snapping the third’s neck. 

Past this point, other memories came in a blur, like a slideshow missing a few pictures. Her banishment from the group. Fighting with cops. Being a runaway, a street rat. Learning how to use a sword. 

Ashlyn shook her head. “The first time is always the hardest. But it got easier, every time.” 

“How many people have you killed?” Alda asked, voice tight and stiff. Ashlyn fell silent. 

The sun had long since set. Alda’s face was covered in shadows; her brown eyes, full lips and button nose were all covered in darkness. Ashlyn couldn’t quite make out the teenager’s reaction, but she could guess that it wasn’t one she wanted to know. 

Alda turned over in the bed, and she, too, was asleep within minutes. 

A minute went by, then two. Ten. Twenty. Ashlyn’s gaze remained fixed on the window and the city beyond the glass. 

After about half an hour of mostly silence, with nothing but Maria’s annoying snores to fill the room, Ashlyn noticed something outside. 

It was another group, but they didn’t seem like scared travelers. Their eyes lacked the caution and fear of the family from before. No, their narrow eyes were filled with malice; they were not afraid of whoever came around the corner. They  **longed** for it. These were the eyes of fighters. Of hunters. 

The men were dressed in white robes, with red cuffs on the sleeves. Some of them had purple capes draping off their backs, others had fabrics the color of glacial ice, others still had cream cloaks. The women were dressed in light gray robes, a simpler design. A few of them wore ornate crosses, made of bronze and silver and copper and gold. At the front of the back were two people, a man in a violet cloak and a woman with golden trinkets around her hood.

Most of their faces were obscured by darkness, the light of the destroyed city only illuminating a few. There was no pattern between them: all genders, races and ages gathered together. Ashlyn stared at the group. She was not a religious person, but in spite of her agnosticism, she prayed that they had the answer to this madness, though a small part of her hypothesized that they were merely another symptom of Dria’s insanity. 

On the roads, the men and women discussed amongst themselves, out of Ashlyn’s earshot. 

“Our scouts found the swordsmen here,” the High Priestess said. Her gold-adorned hood hid locks of raven-black hair and eyes the color of a spring forest. “Where is he?”

“Have patience,” the High Priest breathed, his coat rippling in the night breeze. A hush fell over the crowd. They clung to his every word. “The chaos is only just beginning. The city will only get worse from here. In time, we will defeat the Adversary and banish all the heretics, but for now, we have to be content with whatever we find.”

He turned to the two guards behind him. They were tall men, both in their mid-20s. The one on the left was built like a brick wall, with biceps nearly as big as the Priest’s head and a chest as firm as steel. His robes were a size too small. The one on the right was not nearly as well-built, but he had a sizable amount of muscle on his body. He bore a scar on his face that covered his left eye and nose. Each of the guards wielded sniper rifles with black handles and barrels made from silver and oak wood the color of soil. The juxtaposition between holy garb and modern firearms was strange, to say the least. 

“Come along now,” the High Priest ordered. “Let’s keep moving.”

“Yes sir, your holiness,” they both replied in unison. And with that, the entire garrison advanced down the streets. 

Ashlyn watched the entire interaction, trying to best lip-read the Priest and Priestess. As she observed intently, one of the Holy guards sharply turned his attention to the right, at her window. Ashlyn practically jumped out of the way. She was not about to draw attention from a few dozen armed zealots, not if she could help it. 

The guard caught a glimpse of her dark black hair, but dismissed it as just the shadows playing with his mind, or a curtain flapping in the wind. She breathed a sigh of relief when they passed down her street without so much as a second glance at the Sapphire Regent. 

“Are you alright?” 

The nomad turned to face Maya, who was currently tugging at the hem of her coat, a worried expression on her pudgy face. 

“I thought you went to bed, kid,” Ashlyn grunted, not bothering to lower her voice for the rest of their sleeping companions. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I kept seeing weird...things. Things I saw today.”

Two possibilities went through Ashlyn’s head. Option one: like her sister, Maya was replaying the events of the day in her head, down to the last bullet fired and the last drop of blood. Option two: the kid was talking about a nightmare. 

Ashlyn did not ask for elaboration. “Try to sleep, kid.” Ashlyn wanted to roll her eyes at the conversation.  _ This is why I don’t like kids _ . 

“Miss,” Maya said. “What’s gonna happen to us?”

Ashlyn looked at Maya long and hard, a million thoughts swimming through her head. Thoughts of more Bronze-infected crazies finding them, or that cult coming back to the hotel, or more survivors trying to rob and kill them. Thoughts of law and order disappearing, of Dria falling to ashes. Even thoughts of order being reinstated, of Ashlyn falling under fire for the lives she took today. 

In her digressive state, Ashlyn thought of Old Man Tomm, of his wife, and of the soldier underneath that crescent moon. 

Without thinking, Ashlyn put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Nothing’s gonna happen to you, kid. I promise.” 


	6. Dreams and Danger

After those white and gray-clad zealots left, the streets of Dria were empty and the night was silent. All of the children were asleep, leaving Ashlyn with little to do. 

Despite what she tried, she couldn’t get those people out of her head. She’d heard of them before. The newspapers called them the Pale Cloth. Allegedly, they had many members in the higher echelons of Dria’s law enforcement, medicine and government, but the exact nature of their origins or teachings were still unknown. They’d swept through the nation, trying to weed out the “heretics” their own way. They’d been chased out of a half-dozen cities down south, and it seemed inevitable that they’d flock to Dria. _I hoped I’d never have to see them_ , she said, somehow doubting that the people of the Cloth would find her bloodstained appearance appealing. 

Dria had always had a reputation for organized crime. It was a side-effect of bordering the city-state of Garden, which wasn’t exactly known for being sunshine and rainbows itself. In fact, Garden had the highest crime rates this side of the ocean. It’s darkness had spread to Dria since the Prohibition, like a plague cutting through town after town without mercy. Gangs ran the streets, drug dealers sold to playgrounds, bribes were part of a judge’s salary, and dirty cops sneered down on and ordered around the few who were still good.

In Dria, things were a bit better, though not by much. The Pale Cloth was getting stronger and stronger. Rumors had been circulating of strange people, clad in black, hiding out in the foul sewers, the dark alleys. Adults disappeared at five times the national average. The prison was just getting more and more crowded. 

Ashlyn attempted to shake the thought from her head by examining her newfound supplies. She still had the revolver from her bag. It was a silver little thing, a last-ditch weapon she’d been carrying around since she was practically a kid. It felt considerably lighter in her hand, being that it was now missing a few bullets. She took a few spare pieces of ammunition, reloaded it, cleaned it, and set it aside. 

The hunting knife was next. Ashlyn hadn’t used it yet today, but she had a sinking feeling she would. Maybe not now, but soon. She couldn’t remember where she got it, but she had a feeling it’d been in her possession for a while. 

The sawed-off shotgun in her hand was an intriguing little thing. The musk of gunpowder was absent from the weapon, and the robber who wielded it hesitated at first.  _ He’d probably never used it _ , Ashlyn realized. She weighed it in her hand, turning it around, feeling the curve of the handle.  _ I wonder if it’s ever even been fired _ . She rested her finger on the trigger for a split-second, her digits practically itching to use it. 

Finally, the machete. Ashlyn cleaned the blood off as best as she could with some white rags she found downstairs. She held it delicately in her hands as she cleaned it, using slow, easy strokes of the fabric, careful not to cut herself. It felt comfortable in her hands, like it was made for her. 

About two hours after the priests and priestesses left, Ashlyn considered waking Maria.  _ She should take a shift,  _ Ashlyn thought, a yawn on her lips.  _ It’s the least she could do _ . 

In her sleep, Maria had rolled over a bit, Jaime still tucked fiercely underneath her arm, as if he’d drift away any second and she needed to keep him anchored to the ground. She looked serene. Pretty, even. 

Ashlyn shook her head.  _ Fine. She can sleep a bit longer _ . 

Another hour passed. A faint, distant boom caught Ashlyn’s attention. 

_ What was that?  _ She looked out the window, and when she couldn’t see anything, she looked out the other windows of the room. From the far-right, she got a better view. 

Smoke emerged from a building, the pillars of ash and gray becoming almost as high as the building itself, completely covering anything and everything in the surrounding radius. Ashlyn shook her head in disbelief, but forced herself to stay awake. 

For a brief moment, she pondered on the reason she came to Dria in the first place. The tiny, miniscule chance that she might see his face. It made he realize just how stupid it was to come all this way to a city, just for it to go to hell. 

Ten minutes passed. Then, a second explosion. Five more minutes after that. A third. 

They created more smoke than fire, that was something the movies didn’t show. The shockwaves were often deadlier than the explosion itself, but based on how far out the explosions were, they were safe. Probably. 

In any event, that third explosion caused Maria to stir in her bed, and Ashlyn wondered if she’d wake. Time had escaped her completely. 

Jaime started to shift around, his shoulder rubbing into Maria’s. The motion woke her from her restless sleep, and her eyes slowly fluttered open. 

She laid like that in the dark for a few minutes, eyes adjusting to the shadows. Eventually, she could make out Ashlyn’s figure. The nomad was propped up against the window, carefully observing the streets below. She started to nod off every couple of seconds, barely catching herself every time. 

A helicopter flew by the window, red and blue lights flashing.  _ A police chopper?  _ Ashlyn wondered. 

The helicopter shone a spotlight on the streets below. The zealots were long since gone, as was the swordsman, but the corpses remained. The streaks of blood, the torn earth, the discarded weapons. 

The helicopter flew away casually, as if it was never there, leaving Ashlyn to wonder. 

Maria crawled out of bed and approached the woman. “You should get some sleep,” she said gently. 

Ashlyn wanted to laugh.  _ How could this woman trust me, after everything she’s seen me do?  _ Ashlyn thought.  _ All those people I’ve killed, the weapons I carry, how can she afford to trust me so easily? To speak to me so softly?  _

These questions surged through her mind, but another left her lips. “Can you take a shift?”

Maria yawned, causing moisture to brim at the corner of her eyes, but she nodded all the same. 

Ashlyn found a few extra sheets in the closet. She made a makeshift bed with them, Jaime on her right, Alda and Maya on her left. 

Before she drifted off into a deep sleep, the last thing Ashlyn saw was Maria’s pensive smile, her dark eyes staring out the window. She was examining the pillars of smoke, the mark of the explosions. 

In her dreams, Ashlyn was standing in the ocean. The water was a magnificent blue, and ankle-deep, but there was no coast in sight. The sand beneath her feet was firm yet soft. Her feet sank into it the longer she stayed in one place. At first, it would take a few seconds for the sand to start sucking Ashlyn in. She walked slowly, trying not to get pulled in, trying not to panic. After a while, it’d only be a second or two until the sand consumed her. Then, it took less than a moment. 

Soon, Ashlyn found herself sprinting as fast as possible, trying to outrun a surface that was doing its best to consume her. As Ashlyn waded through the ocean, she saw the faces of people reflected in the water. The robbers from earlier, the jaundiced woman who tried to attack Maria. The electrokinetic Bronze-infested man, his wife. The High Priest and High Priestess. The armored swordsman. 

She saw the face of Rain Erikson. He looked older, his hair graying and crows feet forming around his eyes, the color of stones under the ocean, but it was him. 

With each step, the water grew thicker, darker. The sky blue turned into the color of lilacs, then a deep, dark purple, and eventually, the color of blood. 

Before long, Ashlyn was more focused on the reflections in the blood than her steps. She tripped, falling face-first into the blood. It poured into her lungs, choking her, suffocating her. 

The sand beneath her seemed to rise from the ocean floor, forming hands and arms that grabbed her neck, her arms, her legs, her hair. 

Ashlyn tried to scream as the ground consumed her, but no sound came out. The blood filled every inch of her body. She couldn’t speak, breath, see, hear. She couldn’t even think. She was as good as dead. 

Ashlyn awoke with a gasp. Cold sweat dripped down her forehead, and pain exploded through her side instantly, as if her dreams were attacking her in the waking world. 

The sun had not yet risen, but the children were already awake, restless. Jaime had a sullen look on his face, but Maya attempted to coax him into playing tag in their spacious room, the young girl’s traumas from the day prior seemingly forgotten. Both of them still wore the same clothes from yesterday, covered in soot and dirt. 

Maria was at Ashlyn’s side, squeezing her hand. “You were having a nightmare last night,” she said. 

“You were tossing around a lot, Mrs. Orchid,” Jaime said nonchalantly. “It kept waking me.”

Maria glared at her son, before turning back to Ashlyn. “I’m worried about you. I think your wound’s going to get infected if we don’t treat it soon.”

“I know,” Ashlyn said through gritted teeth. 

“You need some rest,” Maria urged. 

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Maria told her. “You need medicine, and stitches.” She looked to Jaime and Alda. “Kids, go into the other rooms. See if you can find a First Aid Kit.”

“No!” Ashlyn nearly shouted, and the pain returned in full swing. “No. It’s not safe, let me go with you.”

Ashlyn tried to rise to her feet, holding onto Jaime’s bed for support, but Maria pushed her down with her arms. “No. You need rest. Don’t push yourself.” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle you could even stand at all, let alone fight like you did.”

“Adrenaline,” Ashlyn explained. “I barely felt anything all day. It was just a blur.”

“You were saying someone’s name in your sleep,” Maria whispered, changing the subject. “You kept saying the name...Rain.” 

Ashlyn shook her head. “It’s nothing,” she muttered. 

“Is that the friend?” Maria asked. “The friend you were coming to visit in Dria.” 

Ashlyn looked at her, dark and serious, nostrils flared in annoyance.  _ What is it to you?  _ She wanted to ask.  _ Why the bloody hell do you care? _

Maria pressed on. Averting her gaze for a split-second, she asked, “Do you think he’s out there?” Another pause. “I-is he safe? Could he help?” 

_ Ah, so that was it,  _ Ashlyn realized.  _ Fear. She’s looking for someone to protect her, anyone.  _

_ Fear was a funny thing. It turned people desperate. They’d be willing to even trust total strangers _ . The nomad shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Right now, we need to focus.”

In that moment, Ashlyn felt a flurry of emotions. Pity, sympathy, annoyance, all in relatively equal measures. (And yet, an oh-so-small part of her brain still thought that the tired, sleep-deprived, desperate Maria looked...well, pretty.)

Ashlyn took a deep breath, before groaning in pain again. “Right now, we need medicine and supplies to stitch me up. But it’s too dangerous to go out alone.”

Alda raised her voice, interjecting in the conversation. “And then what? We just sit here forever, until someone finds us?”

“If need be, yes,” Ashlyn told the girl. “Look around you. The city is falling apart. You saw what it was like. Do you want to go out there?”

Embarrassed, Alda huffed and crossed her arms. “Look, kid,” Ashlyn said, “I’ve been around the block a few times. I’ve seen some shit, but nothing like what’s happening right now. I don’t even know if there will  **be** a Dria in the next couple days. I know I said we’d just spend the night here...but, well, I don’t know if I can keep that promise.”

“Aren’t we going home now, mama?” Maya asked, looking up at her mother. 

“Not now, little one,” Ashlyn said. “Maybe not for a while. Not until it’s safe.”

“What aren’t you telling us?” Alda asked. 

Maria shot her daughter a furious look, but Ashlyn held up a hand. “It’s fine, lady.” Turning to Alda, then to Jaime and Maya, she said, “Last night, I saw some people in the street, when I went down to the lobby. Travelers, like me. But they didn’t look scary or aggressive, not like the others. They were just normal. Until they got exposed to some kind of gas. One of them, he...he changed.”

Realization dawned on Maria’s face. “The news before we left. It talked about that gas, the terrorists that released it. Bronze, right?”

“That might be it,” Ashlyn admitted. “But whatever it is, it’s tearing this city apart.” 

She left out the parts about the swordsman, who haunted her dreams. She also left out the part about the Pale Cloth pursuing him, their weapons drawn and bodies covered by cloaks and hoods.  _ They needn’t worry about that _ . 

She shifted her weight, struggling to her feet. Jaime stepped forward, offering a hand. “Let me help you,” he whispered. Ashlyn nodded her head and took his hand. 

“What are you--” Maria began. 

“I’m  **fucking fine** ,” Ashlyn emphasized. “For the last time, I’m going to go find some supplies.” She turned to Alda. “Kid, come with me.”

Alda looked reluctant, but against the protests of her mother, she nodded and followed all the same. Ashlyn swung her bag over her shoulder, took her revolver off the nightstand and holstered it, and strapped the clean machete to her side. 

“Ready?” she asked Alda. 

The girl nodded, and the two stepped out of the room. 

They searched for supplies for another hour or so. The upper floors of the Sapphire Regent were worse than the lower floors. 

Windows were shattered, leaving thick, sharp pieces of glass in the carpet and floors. Ashlyn and Alda had to take several detours to avoid cutting their feet. The smell of drying blood filled the upper rooms with a stench that burned Ashlyn’s sensitive nose. She sifted through them anyways, looking for bandages, gauze, bottles of painkillers, needles, scalpels, something, anything. 

Alda’s expression was shifting throughout the morning. She seemed reluctant to follow at some points, excited to help at others; disgusted and intrigued by the violence around her. She looked to Ashlyn with a mixture of fear and respect, a combination that made Ashlyn’s skin crawl. The vagabond couldn’t quite figure out whether any of Alda’s reactions were annoying or amusing. 

They got pretty lucky on a couple of occasions. Last night, everyone had been in such a panic to leave the city that they left so much behind. Suitcases partially filled with clothes and garbs, nearly-full bottles of alcohol. Gaming consoles, laptops, chargers, game cartridges. Stuffed animals, Teddy bears. Barbie dolls, action figures from comic books. Butcher knives and sticks and muddy boots. 

At one point, Ashlyn noticed a safe that had been left ajar, some dollar bills left behind. When Alda was in the other room, ransacking a wardrobe for some clothes her size to change into, Ashlyn swiped the money, stuffing it into the deep pockets of her coat. 

Occasionally, they heard shuffling above them, or the sound of wheels turning or stairs being walked on. Ashlyn tried to dismiss it at first, insisting it was just an animal, but it became too hard to ignore.  The fact of the matter was, the city had fallen to some kind of biological attack, but it was stupid to assume everyone had died. Some were still out there, and they probably had the same idea as Ashlyn. 

Her fears were proved right soon enough. The elevators were down; in fact, all electricity was down.  _ The explosions last night _ , Ashlyn realized.  _ It knocked off the power grids _ . 

They had to take the stairs, and Ashlyn felt her side exploding with every step, but she pushed through. After ransacking floors one through eight, they got up to floor nine. 

Before they even reached the stairs, Ashlyn’s nostrils were burning with the smell of blood. Deep in her bones, she knew this was going to be a grisly sight. 

Each of the floors had four or five different hallways. One or two would connect, but all looped back onto a “common area” where the elevators of that floor were, plus some furniture and paintings, as well as the staircase. 

Upon reaching the ninth floor, Alda turned around and vomited. Bodies were scattered throughout, bullet holes in their spines, heads, eyes, faces, hearts. The blood had since stopped flowing freely from the wounds, but their clothes were still stained scarlet, as were the cream carpets underneath them. They looked like they had once been fancy, upper-class folks, with their pearl necklaces, dresses the colors of the sky and sun and moon, their freshly-ironed ebony suits and ivory shirts. 

“Look away,” Ashlyn told Alda. The girl did as she was told. Ashlyn took a step forward, hand pressed against the wall for balance, and knelt down to examine the bodies. 

There were four in all, two men, two women. Many of them died with their eyes wide open and staring up, as if pleading for God to save them. It was a horrid sight, but Ashlyn pushed their pale, bloodied faces from her mind and focused on the blood specifically. 

In the center was a man in a simple white button-down shirt, a three-piece tuxedo thrown over it. His eyes were wide open, brown and beautiful, the life faded from them. His black hair had been slicked back and dyed with blood. 

He had been shot the most, twice in the chest and once in the head. Consequently, there was more blood around him than anyone else.  _ Either he put up a struggle, or the people that did this knew him _ , Ashlyn realized.  _ Or the shooters were just sick bastards.  _

She dabbed her fingers in the blood pooling around him. It was relatively fresh, but already beginning to dry, already turning a darker, brown color.  _ These people were killed recently _ ,  _ maybe a day or two ago _ , she thought.  _ But that’s not saying much. The same could be said for everyone on the streets. We still don’t know if anyone’s in this hotel _ . 

Sifting through their coats, Ashlyn found nothing. That is to say, no wallets, no jewelry, no coins, no fancy watches, nothing. In fact, the girl next to him seemed to be the only one with anything valuable: bloodied pearls around her neck.  The man in the center with three bullet wounds was another example. Ashlyn held his white and red hand in hers, examining his fingers. There was a red mark around his left ring finger, as if a wedding band had been there for years, and it was only recently taken off. 

_ Whatever happened, it was a robbery _ .  _ When the carnage first started, they’d taken advantage of the chaos, killed these people, took everything _ . 

Chemical weapons turning fellow men against fellow men? It was almost optimistic, in hindsight. Men require very little to turn against one-another.  If the residents of Dria--like the robbers and rapists from the night before--had been possessed by this Bronze gas, it would be one thing. A problem to be solved, a code to be cracked, a drug to be eradicated. But this? This was just pure, unbridled humanity. The tendency of man to take advantage of any situation they could to get ahead, even if it meant cold-blooded murder. 

And that was much, much worse.  The thought chilled Ashlyn to her bones. 

“Come along,” Ashlyn told Alda, who was still doing everything in her power to not vomit again. “Let’s head upstairs.”

After another minute or so of Ashlyn struggling to climb the stairs, her sensitive and bloodied flesh positively on fire, they managed to get to floor ten. It was significantly less grisly. Furniture was knocked over and doors were literally knocked down, but there was no blood, no gore. 

As Ashlyn and Alda rummaged through this level of the hotel, she mentally examined what she knew. 

_ Whatever Bronze is, it’s what turned those people last night _ , she realized.  _ But Bronze didn’t turn everyone. Some people like us are just trying to survive _ .  _ Any way they can.  _

Ashlyn turned to Alda. “Hey, kid,” she said. 

Alda perked up. “Yes?”

“Have you ever fired a gun before?”

Alda blinked. “No, I most certainly have not,” she said. She shifted her footing. “Okay, once.”

Ashlyn put one hand on the sawed off shotgun, and with her other, held out the revolver by the barrel. “Do you want to take it?”

Alda’s response was firm. “No.”

“You might want to,” Ashlyn said, and she held out the gun further. “Shit’s hit the fan. You need a weapon to defend yourself.”

Alda eyed Ashlyn, and reluctantly took the firearm. “I’ve never fired a revolver before.”

“I figured.” 

“Is there a safety latch?”

“Nope.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“Dunno. It was a long time ago.” She looked to Alda, who held the foreign object in her hands, her arms tilting over slightly. 

“It’s heavy,” Alda said, wrapping her hand around the handle clumsily. 

“What have you fired before?”

“A hunting rifle. With my Uncle Rick,” Alda said. 

Ashlyn shrugged. “That’s heavier.” Alda rolled her eyes. “This is the kind where you gotta pull that down,” Ashlyn said, pointing to the silver hammer. “Once you hear the second click, squeeze the trigger and fire.”

Alda took a firing stance, her feet shoulder-length apart, her left hand gripping tightly onto the handle and her right hand supporting it. She was a natural. “You left-handed?”

“Ambidextrous,” Alda replied. 

Ashlyn looked down the hallways. “Let’s split up,” she said. “You search the supply closets, see if you can find anything, I’ll look in the doors.”

Once again, Alda was reluctant, but she nodded and left all the same. Ashlyn set off in one direction, Alda in the other. 

The first few rooms were all locked, but towards the end of the hallway, Ashlyn found a door that had been left ajar. Poking around inside, she saw that it was relatively clean, considering the carnage outside. The bed had been made neatly, but the lamp had been knocked over, the lightbulb shattered on the carpet. The bathroom door revealed half a bottle of Vodka, open drawers with toothpaste and toothbrushes, and an assortment of pill bottles of all colors. 

Ashlyn read through the pill bottles, looking for anything that could be of use. She glanced twice at a smaller bottle, the label of which read, “Morphine-Sulfate Extended Release Tablets, 60 miligrams.”

Ashlyn looked behind her, making sure that Alda wasn’t around, before downing two pills. A pause. Then a third, which she chased down with the rest of the Vodka. Again, she looked over her shoulder. 

It took awhile for Ashlyn to start feeling it, but when the morphine finally kicked in half an hour later, the pain in her side faded. She searched two more rooms before she finally found it. 

The bathroom was still filthy, dirt and grime covering the floors, towels and drawers, but in the corner, a lone First Aid Kit stuck out like a sore thumb. Even with the morphine, Ashlyn could still feel her wound, and right now, the sight of that white box and red cross nearly drove her to tears. She rushed to the box, opening it up with one hand.  _ Please have something I can use, anything, please _ . 

Empty. 

“Fuck,” she breathed. 

Ashlyn stood up from the floor, pulling herself to her feet with one hand on the bathroom counter, the other pressed tightly to her side. She needed to change the bandages soon. 

Once she stood up, her eyes automatically found the bathroom window, facing the sky. Those pillars of smoke remained, towers of destruction breaking into the clouds above. She followed down with her eyes, until she reached the street. It wasn’t the bloody town square that she, Maria and the kids walked on the night before, but it was an adjacent street. It looked...darker. 

_ Wait a minute _ . Ashlyn pressed her face to the glass, trying to get a better look. 

In broad daylight, those shadows were...moving. They weren’t shadows at all, they were people, clad in black combat suits with dark gray masks and brown boots. And they were all converging on the hotel. 

_ I need to find the kids _ , she thought.  _ Right now _ . 

Ashlyn heard a scream. The scream came from the hallways. 

As fast as she could in her current state, Ashlyn ran out to the hallways, shotgun drawn in one hand and machete in the other. She bolted out of the empty room, and was nearly beheaded.

A man with a cleaver was waiting for her in the halls. The weapon was huge. Him, not so much. Ashlyn stepped out of the way just in time. She could feel the wind from his strike, but it surely took all his upper-body strength. 

He followed up with another attack, but in their close proximity, she parried his strike with the gleaming machete. Fuming at his mistakes, he slashed at her vertically, and she stepped out of the way just in time. 

He swung with far too much force; the cleaver planted itself into the ground, and he struggled to pull it out. Ashlyn slammed her elbow into him, and he stumbled back. 

“Where’d you get a thing like this?” she asked.  He looked at her for a moment, and for a brief, fleeting second, Ashlyn considered letting him go now that he was disarmed. 

“Boss!” he shouted, voice strangely high-pitched for a man of his stature, all while reaching into his coat pocket. “I got another--”

He didn’t have time to draw the pistol out of his black jacket. Ashlyn squeezed the trigger, and shotgun shells tore apart his chest, decorating the walls with red. She put the machete away and planted both feet firmly. Like King Arthur with Excalibur in the stone, she pulled the cleaver out, before remembering the source of the commotion. 

_ Another... _ she thought.  _ Oh, no.  _

Rushing into floor ten’s main area, she saw them. Two men, one woman. A man with foggy green eyes and a scalp tattoo held Alda in one arm, the revolver-- **her** revolver--pointed at her head. 

When the green-eyed man saw Ashlyn’s shotgun, his gaze stiffened, his nostrils flared. “Try anything, and I blow her apart,” he said. “Just like you did to mine.”

The other man had a crowbar in his meaty hands, and it dripped with blood. The woman had a baton strapped to her side and a pistol in her hands, though she was struggling to load it. 

_ More robbers, more criminals _ , Ashlyn thought.  _ Could this get any worse?  _

The answer, as it turned out was yet. 

The three robbers all backed away, walking to the staircase. By this point, the woman had successfully loaded a new magazine into the pistol, which was firmly planted at Ashlyn’s chest, though Ashlyn already had her own shotgun trained on the woman.  The green-eyed man--the “Boss” of the gang, apparently--pushed Alda further into the barrel of the gun, the cold metal pressing against her temple. Her eyes were closed, tears stained her cheeks. She mouthed something to Ashlyn: ‘Please. Help.’

“We’ll be going, now,” the man said. “Or do you want us to blow your girl’s brains out?”

The anger in his voice was gone, replaced by something colder, sharper. The willingness to kill, the capacity to make it happen. This was no bluff. 

“Listen, just let her go,” Ashlyn said. Her words were directed at the green-eyed man, but her eyes and gun were still trained on the woman. “There’s some weird shit happening here. We have a better chance of surviving if we work together.” 

“Survive?” the crowbar-wielder spat. “Bitch, we’re finally living! We’re never going back!”

Ashlyn said nothing. She simply watched as a thick cloud of Bronze seeped into the room from the stairway behind them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well it's not visible yet, my main sources of inspiration for this story were The Dark Knight Rises, BioShock, The Purge and Bloodborne. I've always been fascinated by the idea of a beautiful city just tearing itself to pieces, and this story is that interest distilled down to its purest form.


End file.
